7/24/2019
From The Archive - All Things Work Together For Good

(originally published on March 11, 2019) How many complaints do we hear every day? My boss is doing this, my coworker is saying that, this sister in church said so-and-so, the pastor is teaching such-and-such; the list goes on and on. We are all guilty of uttering words that should not be said.

Psalm 19:14 says, "Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer." As we go through the day, we should always ask ourselves if our words, or even our thoughts, are acceptable to the Lord. We should also remember that the Lord has given us blessings beyond measure in not only our revelation of the Word, but also in our health, our churches, and countless other things that we so often take for granted. 

This heart-wrenching story from a young lady in Brazil shows us that we should never complain about any situation we find ourselves in. Her testimony is an example of how we can use everything that comes our way to encourage this world to turn to Jesus Christ. 

Hi, I'm Raíssa Stefani Favero Magalhães, and I'm 12 years old. Today I'm going to give a brief report of what I went through in these five months and six days between life and death. I believe that everything started in a family worship that we had with my mother about four days before the accident. In this, I made the following prayer: “Lord God and Heavenly Father, I want You to use me to reach souls for Your Kingdom. In the Name of Jesus Christ, amen!”

On July 17, 2015, I was in one of the rooms of my grandmother's house with my five-year-old brother, Reuben, while my mother was resting in one of the rooms of the house with my one-year-old brother, Luiz Edwardo.

That day was difficult because my grandmother's father had died. My grandmother had left to attend the funeral. It was very cold and the wood stove was still slightly burning. Since the fire was extinguishing, I tried to reignite it. While holding the bottle of starter fluid in my hands, the explosion occurred.

My brother Reuben was on my side. I cannot explain how he did not burn himself too. It was really God who kept him. I started screaming for help, because I was completely on fire. My mother came to help me and began to stifle the fire of my hair and head with her bare hands and said to me, “Raissa, my daughter, let us sing... whiter than snow, whiter than snow… Yes, washed in this Blood I will be whiter than snow... Sing my daughter, sing...”

I was almost without strength and with great pain, being no longer able to neither shout nor walk. My mother did something that the doctors praised, put me under the shower and while the water was falling, it washed the fluid from my body and extinguished the flames.

She called the military police and my father, who came rushing to help me. Consequently, my mother spent 15 days in the ICU for having rescued me and almost had her hands atrophied or even amputated, but by a miracle, they are practically normal today! Praise our God!

The bag with the prophet's CDs was in this room where almost everything was burned except the CDs. The bag was burned, but none of the prophet's MP3 CDs were damaged, proving once more that Christ watches over His Word.

I was taken the same day to the hospital of the capital of the state almost lifeless. My father went with me in the ambulance. That night they asked him to leave and try to rest and my uncle would stay, because they thought that I would die that night. I was swollen and unrecognizable, whoever looked at me said only by a miracle I would survive. Cuts were made all over my body to see if the blood was circulating. I almost had my fingers amputated, for they were swollen and black as coal.

The struggle for life began, all my beloved ones asked prayers for me; they put the prayer cloth on me and formed a prayer chain, an invisible union of the Bride of Christ in prayer. The pain and suffering were so many, that if God had taken me, I know I'd be in a better place, but He helped me endure everything with faith and patience, day after day.

I believe I have a purpose in being alive, reaching souls for Christ with my testimony of a true Christian! Because I had 0% immunity and no skin protecting my body, 19 types of fatal bacteria inside the ICU attacked me. My catheter was changed seven times, the fragment of one of them being still inside one of my arteries, due to a clinical error.

Doctors said several times that I had 1% of probability to live, but our God turned it into 100% Life!

I went through more than 20 surgeries to graft skins in my body, because in some parts the bones were visible. God by His endless Love never forsook me; He was present in skin, in my family, in the medical team, and in the uncles and aunts who cared for me with so much affection and love all the time.

They took turns all day and night with my parents, and by the strength that came from God, they managed to win with me this 159-day journey in the hospital. While I lay there dying in that bed, my mother, uncles, and aunts evangelized with tracts (I even delivered some) and witnessed my improvement and comforted other parents and relatives of dying children in that Pediatric ICU.

And because I asked the Lord that I wanted to win souls for Him, I can say He heard my prayer, and five souls received the baptism in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I know that many more will come.

My warrior mommy, to exercise her faith that I was going to leave that hospital alive, soon after she left the ICU bought me a pair of slippers. As that little girl who took her little slippers under her arm in the prayer line of Brother Branham, believing that she would walk out with them, so did my mother. I used and still use that pair of slippers.

In 2015, a few days before Christmas, I was discharged from hospital. I had to undergo a tracheostomy, but by the grace of God I do not have it anymore, as soon as it was taken, the hole closed very fast, and today I praise the Lord in the church and my voice is normal!

Our Lord Jesus is the Same Yesterday, Today, and Forever!

Brazil

Sister Raissa, your testimony is being read by thousands of people around the world, and you are an inspiration!